The plan to restore government in Somalia was
never fully carried out. By May, Aideed’s faction of the USC, the
Somali National Alliance (SNA), began to reject the UN peacekeepers’ intrusion
in their affairs. They also felt that some of the regions were not
represented as well as they had originally hoped.
Any hopes to restore government in Somalia
came crashing down on June 5, 1993 (as detailed in the book and film Black Hawk Down). On this day, an armed group of
Somalis attacked Pakistani UN troops as they attempted to inspect an arms
depot controlled by the SNA. The attack was believed to have been
premeditated and led by Aideed (54).
The U.S. coordinated a Quick Reaction Force in order to capture Aideed.
In the search for him, the U.S. conducted several bombing raids.
After several months, Aideed was tracked down to the Olympic Hotel in Mogadishu.
On October 3, in an attempt to capture him, eighteen U.S. troops were killed
and another 84 were wounded in a terrible fight
(55).
“Within hours, horrifying pictures appeared on U.S. television networks:
the corpses of American soldiers being dragged through the streets of Mogadishu,
a bloodied and terrified helicopter pilot being held hostage” (56).
Determined not to make the same mistake they did in the Vietnam War, the
U.S. quickly made the decision to pull out of Somalia.
In December 1993, one last attempt at peace
was made. A meeting in Addis Ababa, which included the presence of
Aideed, came to a quick end, when Ethiopian leader Meles Senawi stormed
out of the room saying “It appears you Somalis are not willing to reconcile.
Goodbye”
(57). By mid-1994, most countries
had pulled their troops out of Somalia and the Somali people were left
on their own.